A long-held wish, a forbidden magic spell and a kidnapping propel 10-year-old James Bell and his family into an adventure beyond belief. At the moment of the lunar eclipse on the stroke of midnight the World is to be sold. Armed with only the power of his imagination and the contents of his money box, James must challenge the greed of the mighty Bogus Corporation, a sinister bank and the mysterious Gnomes of Zurich in a race against time to stop the sale and prevent the destruction of childhood.

[Fairy Story] "will make you wish you could go back to the magical time of childhood where anything is possible, as it surely is in this book." Masquerade Crew [4-Star] Review.

"An incredible story. Such an interesting world to dive into, with great twists and turns. A mesmerizing read for young and old." Amazon Reader [5-Star] Review.

"Clearly recognizable strands from many familiar stories deftly woven into a new presentation of sin, bravery, adventure, greed and fear. The modern world of Area 51, cell phones, jets and missiles is mixed with Cinderella almost seamlessly. Like all good stories, a basic morality carries the protagonists down their allotted path to an age-old predictable end (which all good stories do). An end for all with another chapter tantalizingly around the corner." Amazon Reader [5 Star] Review.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

I didn't know it at the time, but the idea for Fairy Story came to me
back in the 1970s. It was sparked by a radio discussion about how much
money existed in the world. An economist was arguing that, as most money
is notional and purely the figment of accountants' imaginations, the
actual amount was relatively small; and in various humorous asides he
maintained that world economics was largely an elaborate game of "pass
the parcel" and that the only money which
probably existed in the World was the $100 being kept in a tin box under the bed of a widow in
Vermont.
These surreal ideas found a warm place to incubate in the back of my mind.
Fast forward twenty years.
In
the early 1990s my wife and I gave up London city life and bought a
cottage in a remote area of Wales. It was a land of hills, hidden
valleys and twisting lanes. At night the silence was profound, with a
sky so clear you could count every star in the firmament. It was a
bewitching place. On nights of the full moon, the hedgerows draped with
beads of silver light from the earlier rain and the hilltop lightning
trees stark against the fading remnants of evening, it was almost
impossible not to believe we were living in Fairyland.
It was whilst out walking with my dogs on one of these magical nights that I
unexpectedly recalled the widow in Vermont and the global game of
pass the parcel.
I glanced up at the moon.
What if . . ? I wondered.
And so, on returning home I dusted off my old Olivetti Lettera 32 . . .